#like... a full quarter of rendering 3d images if not more is photography

[21st-century-minutiae]

Blender is a free, open-source 3D model renderer that is quite popular in the early twenty-first century (on account of it being free and comprehensive). Like GIMP (a free, open source 2D image creator/manipulator), many people find the breadth and depth of capabilities to be daunting, but a very large number of free, online tutorials exist that one could use to teach themselves the free software. It is also computationally expensive and is one of the larger bits of software a person might have that isn't a video game.

Blender generally supports key 3d image rendering components: model rigging to generate 3d skeletons in still or animated poses; texture mapping to provide virtual material properties (and consequently define how they look under lighting conditions) to the models, virtual lighting simulation (which, again, can be static or dynamic), and virtual camera positioning (static or moving). With all these components in place, Blender will render a single image or animation of the structure made of the chosen materials under those lighting conditions from the chosen angle. There is more functionality, but this is the core. This is quite different from the standard process of 2d image generation where one manually draws a figure, and shades in shadows or such. But it is high skill labor in a different manner.

Blender has the capacity to make extremely realistic images, or cartoonish outputs. It is easy to find free models and textures online to start with, as a large community of users constantly shares resources with everyone else. Blender outputs can be used in video games, virtual reality, or as still art.

Your characters probably won't use Blender unless they are hobbyists or work in/study graphics. Tech savvy individuals will have heard about Blender, but it is entirely reasonable for your characters to have never heard about it or have any idea how 3d images are generated, since it is a niche topic. It would be entirely appropriate for one of your characters to see a cool image online, download Blender to try to make something for themselves, get frustrated at the complexity and level of work involved to make something truly great, and quit. Or it might become a new, time-consuming hobby for them.

made a little frog in blender using this tutorial :3